REVIEWS. 



267 



REVIEWS. 



'Proceedings of the Geologists' Association, No. 6. 



Since our last number this part of the Association's proceedings has been issued. 

 It commences with a very good paper by the Rev. Walter Mitchell, on " Crys- 

 tallography." This is followed by one on a " New Red Sandstone Quarry,"' at 

 Stourton, in Cheshire, by Mr. Mitchener; and by another on "Brickfields, 

 &c," by Mr. Pickering. There is another paper on which we can bestow an 

 equal meed of praise, although its main features have previonsly been presented 

 elsewhere — that by Mr. Rickman on the Dulwich and Peckham beds. 



There is one paper, however, to which we cannot help referring in a special 

 but different manner, that on the " Geology of the Isle of Sheppey." We 

 do not know why it should be necessary to print such a paper in full, when 

 neither the geology, the natural history, the English, nor the spelling is 

 at all accurate ; while one is so bothered with italics in the printing, that it is 

 difficult to understand and appreciate sentences so full of points. 



In the opening sentence we are told of Sheppey that " The island itself is an 

 outlyer, having been split off and pushed airay to the northward and eastward" (!). 

 We do not know by what rule in orthography outlier is spelt with a y ; nor do 

 we comprehend how, if it be an outlier, it could be pushed two ways at once. 

 We could understand a mass of rock being pushed to the north-eastward ; but 

 even then we should stop to enquire who or what it was that pushed it in that 

 direction. As little can we understand the second sentence, namely, that : — 

 " t.iese (the Sheppey) strata were undoubtedly formed below the waters of the 

 Eocene period (!) of our theory, though now raised high above the ocean." 

 We know there were Eocene seas, on the shores or bottom of which certain 

 strata were deposited; but " the water of the Eocene period of our theory" is 

 a novel liquid of which we were not previously aware of the existence. We are 

 also in some little confusion of ideas as to what it is that is " raised high above 

 the ocean." The text does not clearly explain to us whether it is the strata, 

 the waters, the Eocene period, or "our theory," which has been thus con- 

 spicuously elevated. We do not wish to go into the question of the division of the 

 tertiary beds into crag, Bagshot sand, fresh-water formation, and lower tertiary ; 

 nor to argue against the decided preference the author thinks this divisional 

 arrangement possesses over "the rather awkward names of pliocene, miocene, and 

 eocene" and there are numerous other matters of which we refrain from speaking. 

 Some one said of a book that was praised by our cutting contemporary, the 

 Saturday Review, that it must be a good book indeed when that journal praised 

 it ; so, on the other hand, when we, who prefer to leave unnoticed what we 

 cannot conscientiously praise, say there is one passage in this paper which we 

 intend specially to condemn, our readers will, no doubt, think that passage very 

 bad indeed. The author speaks of Septaria — those great argillaceous nodules 

 of the London clay — as being concentrated round an organic body. We do not 

 want to quarrel with this idea ; but when we read that " indeed, is it not 

 probable that some mollusc or jelly-fish originally formed the nucleus of every 

 septaria ; and that the septa were produced after the creature was, perhaps 

 suddenly, enveloped in soft or semi-liquid clay by gases evolved from the 

 decomposing animal matter, causing the conglomerate to crack in virtual (? sic) 

 lines, till other chemical changes taking place the chinks became filled with 

 calcareous spar, often bespangled with crystals of pyrites," we can scarcely 

 refrain from grinning like an ogre, throwing our arms about like a windmill, and 

 with Dominie Sampson in Scott's novel, shouting "Prodigious," till the roof rings 

 with our raptures. The nucleus of that great septarian table-top in yonder 



